Thursday, October 15, 2015

Give it up to this talented Palestinian refugee from Syria who has managed to make music in the face of a brutal war. In Syria's Yarmouk refugee camp on the outskirts of Damascus, an estimated 18,000 residents are living out a bare-boned survival. A brutal government siege has left them with little food and rare access to clean water amid the daily threat of violence.

But in the middle of the devastation, a musician with a battered piano is coloring the scene with sounds of hope. He plays his music over the constant bombs, bullets and sounds of destruction.

Ayham Ahmad has played his music amid the rubbleof his Syrian hometown and at a transit stopwhile traveling by footacross Europe. On Sunday, Syria's beloved piano man performed his songs in front ofthousandsof people in the historic Konigsplatz arena in Munich, Germany.

Ahmad was one of the acts at the Danke-Konzert, or "Thank You Concert," a free show featuring a string of German artists welcoming refugees and thanking volunteers involved in the refugee effort. It wasorganizedby nonprofit Bellevue di Monaco, German indie rock band Sportfreunde Stiller and Munich's city government.